The house was pulled down in 1844. Robert Chambers, who saw it in the twenties, noticed a mark on the wall of Smith’s study, and was told that the philosopher used to compose standing. As he dictated to his clerk he would rub his wig sideways against the wall, and so left a mark which, says the antiquary regretfully, “remained till lately, when the room being painted anew it was unfortunately destroyed.” Hume, who had just removed to James’s Court, Edinburgh, wrote to his friend in August 1769 to tempt him from his retreat:— “I am glad to have come within sight of you, and to have a view of Kirkaldy from my windows: but as I wish also to be within speaking terms of you, I wish we could concert measures for that purpose. I am mortally sick at sea, and regard with horror and a kind of hydrophobia the great gulf that lies between us. I am also tired of travelling, as much as you ought naturally to be of staying at home. I therefore propose to you to come hither and pass some days with me in this solitude. I want to know what you have been doing, and propose to exact a rigorous account of the method in which you have employed yourself during your retreat. I am positive you are in the wrong in many of your speculations, especially where you have the misfortune to differ from me. All these are reasons for our meeting, and I wish you would make me some reasonable proposal for that purpose. There is no habitation on the island of Inchkeith, otherwise I should challenge you to meet me on that spot, and neither of us ever to leave the place till we were fully agreed on all points of controversy.” By the following February the book had made such progress that Hume was expecting to see his friend in Edinburgh for a day or two on his way to London, where Smith already talked of arranging for immediate publication. He changed his mind, however, though he went to Edinburgh in June, where with the Duke of Buccleuch and John Hallam he received the freedom of the city. In January 1772 we find the friends corresponding about Italian literature. Smith recommends Hume to read Metastasio. Hume replies that he is reading Italian prose, again reminds him of the promised visit, and refuses to take the excuse of ill-health, which he calls a subterfuge invented by indolence and love of solitude. “Indeed, my dear Smith, if you continue to hearken to complaints of this nature, you will cut yourself out entirely from human society to the great loss of both parties.” This year was marked by a severe commercial crisis; nearly all the banks in Edinburgh came to grief, and the Duke of Buccleuch and other friends of Smith were in the greatest difficulty. In a letter to Pulteney (September 5, 1772), Smith says, though he has himself suffered no loss in the public calamities, some of his friends have been deeply concerned, and he has been much occupied about the best method of extricating them. He continues:—